In Loving MemoryJohn F. SchadMarch 12, 1943 - March 22, 2024John's funeral service will be livestreamed on Martin Mattice Funeral Home Facebook page.The family is also planning a Celebration of John's life at a later date this summer.Once specifics are decided, the information will be posted here.VISITATIONWednesday, March 27, 20249:30 - 11:00 A.M.Holy Family Catholic ChurchEmmetsburg, IowaMASS OF CHRISTIAN BURIALWednesday, March 27, 202411:00 A.M.Holy Family Catholic ChurchEmmetsburg, IowaCELEBRANTRev. Paul KellyDEACONJohn Rudd
John F. Schad, the voice on the radio for Emmetsburg, Iowa, died of complications from pneumonia on Friday, March 22, in hospice care at the Palo Alto County Hospital. He was 81 years old.
John’s life pursuits were inventive and often unconventional, but they were focused on serving his community. Through the mediums of radio and technology, John served his communities as a journalist, broadcaster, and local leader. John discovered his love of radio as a teenager at Pekin High School in Pekin, Illinois. His first job in broadcasting was driving the reporting vehicle Little Mac for WSIV radio. He soon found his way from behind the wheel to behind a microphone, a place he would stay until his last years.
After high school, John attended Denver University where he met his future wife and lifetime partner, Jan. John was a member of Theta Chi fraternity but spent most of his time at the campus radio station where he and Jan reported on the Kennedy assassination in 1963.
A day after graduating from college with a BA in Communications, John and Jan were married. They moved to Pekin, Illinois, and lived there for two years until they accepted Kennedy’s call for service and joined the Peace Corps. They were assigned to an educational television program in Bogota, Colombia, where they produced educational episodes broadcast to school children in classrooms. Educated teachers were difficult to find in Colombia, but students could be reached through a broadcast signal. Through their time in Colombia, John and Jan made lifelong friends with fellow volunteers and the people of Colombia who folded them into their families.
Following the Peace Corps and the birth of their first child, John F. Schad III, John and Jan moved to Puerto Rico where John worked in sales for Ampex Corporation, covering the Caribbean territory. While waiting to meet with the Ministry of Communications in the Bahamas, John picked up a broadcasting magazine and saw a want ad for a general manager of the radio station WSMI in Carlinville, Illinois. This led the family to their next move. Jeanne and Peggy were born during their time in Carlinville, and the young family were frequent visitors to the WSMI studios.
John often felt called to leadership roles. While in Carlinville, he became the president of the Chamber of Commerce. Carlinville was a town of 5,000 people with a coal mine at its economic heart. Exxon, the owner of the coal mine, produced a television commercial featuring their Carlinville community connection and John was the star. This commercial aired for several years during network prime time. The few dollars that John earned in royalties from that commercial became the seed money for their next adventure.
John had always dreamed of owning his own radio station. In 1976 the young family moved to Jan’s hometown of Emmetsburg, Iowa, and put KEMB-FM on the air in January 1977. With a tower located on his mother-in-law’s farm, John and Jan’s radio station was a format unique to small towns of news, weather, farm reports and local sports with music to fill the time in between.
John was not only the voice on the radio; he was also the voice for local issues, joining the Emmetsburg City Council in the early 1980s and later serving as the mayor of Emmetsburg from 2008 – 2012. As mayor, John started the community garden and held true to his convictions of governmental transparency and service for the people.
John was always interested in how technology could be used to improve operations. Through this interest and the timing of the invention of the personal computer, John began experimenting with writing code to automate simple tasks. His own experimentation drew the interest of other local broadcasters, and through overwhelming demand, John began to sell his code. This led to the sale of KEMB in 1989 and the birth of Smarts Broadcast Systems, a company which creates computer systems to automate radio stations. The company continues to operate today with hundreds of systems sold worldwide. For their service to the industry through both KEMB and Smarts, Jan (posthumously) and John were inducted into the Iowa Broadcasters Hall of Fame in 2022.
Recognizing the need to bring local radio back to Emmetsburg, John was instrumental in starting the low-power FM radio station for the Emmetsburg Chamber of Commerce. He was able to secure the original call letters retired over a decade before and KEMB-LP once again became a local institution.
After Jan’s death in 2016, John retired from the business and public service, and enjoyed summers at his cabin on Ingham Lake and winters at his family home in Florida.
John is survived by his children Johnny Schad (Lori Hebel) of Emmetsburg, Jeanne Schad (John Nestor) of Huntington Beach, California, and Peggy Stolley (Andy) of Emmetsburg. He was also a proud big brother and is survived by his sisters Pam Gasper (Don) of Pekin, Illinois, and Christine Jones (Terry) of Wellington, Florida. Also surviving John are aunt Wilda Carlton of Pekin, IL and cousin Cindy Carlton of Pekin, IL; nephews B.J. Jones (Carrie) of Atlanta, Georgia, and Matt Jones (Jenn Hahn) of Washington, D.C.; and great-nieces and nephews Justine Cabell, Ben Jones, Charlotte Grace Jones, and Sawyer Jones. John’s family also includes the current and former staff of Smarts Broadcast Systems. He was preceded in death by his wife Jan and his parents, Jack and Nelda Schad.
Arrangements by Martin-Mattice Funeral Home
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